emily dickinson writing style essay

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Emily Dickinson

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was an American Poet, now considered as a powerful and popular literary figure in American Culture. She is known for her innovative and proto-modernist poetic style.

A Critic, Harold Bloom has placed her name in the list of major American poets. Her works are widely anthologized and she is a source of inspiration for artists today, especially those artists who are feminist-oriented.

Emily Dickinson’s poetry falls in three periods:

The poetry that has written before 1861 is conventional and sentimental in nature while the time between 1861 and 1865 is the most creative period when much of her creative work was written. This was the period when she wrote on the themes of life and mortality.

About two-third of Emily’s poetry was written after 1866.

Emily Dickinson’s poetry is taught in literature classes in the United States in middle schools and colleges. Several schools are also established in her name. Few journals, such as The Emily Dickinson Journal , are published in her name.

Many of her works have been translated into different languages including Spanish, French, Farsi, Chinese, Russian, Georgian, Mandarin and Kurdish etc.

A Short Biography of Emily Dickinson

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was born into a prominent but not a wealthy family, on the 10th of December 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States.

She studied English and classical literature, Latin, botany, geology, history, arithmetic and mental philosophy during her seven years at Amherst Academy. She was a well-behaved child and an excellent student. She then attended Mount Holyoke Female Seminary for one year.

Emily began writing at an early age and among those who influenced her to include Leonard Humphrey, a young principal of the Amherst Academy, and Benjamin Franklin, a family friend, who introduced her to the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson and William Wordsworth. 

In 1855, Emily went to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where she befriended Charles Wadsworth, who remained a correspondent for a long time.

Susan Gilbert, Emily’s sister-in-law, was her best friend and many of Emily’s poems are written for Susan.

Emily Dickinson was a very reserved person, she rarely went out of the house. Among her, few acquaintances were Otis Phillips Lord, a judge in the Massachusetts judicial court, and Samuel Bowles, the owner of the Springfield Republican .

Emily never married and spent the later years of her life in seclusion. She died on 5th of May 1886, at the age of 55.

Little of Emily Dickinson’s poems were published during her lifetime. Her sister Lavinia discovered her poetry after her death. The first volume of her poetry was published in 1890.

The Dickinson family Homestead was turned into The Emily Dickinson Museum in 2003.

Emily Dickinson’s Writing Style

Emily Dickinson’s poems are lyrics, expressing thoughts and feelings. She was a keen observer and wrote about everything that she observed. Her themes are universal. Her style of writing is not a conventional one, she did not typically follow the poetic rules but had a unique writing style of her own. 

There is no such theme that has not been discussed in Emily Dickinson’s poetry. She has talked about life, death and emotions which show her aesthetic intentions. Sometimes she wrote with humour while other times she used strong wit. 

She had strong imaginative power, she used to dwell in her imaginary world for hours which seemed concrete to her. It would then lead her to write something unique.

The literary techniques that she has used in her poetry include irony , humour , puns and satire .

Emily’s unique style of expression added oddness to her writings which made her different from other poets of her time. She was a prolific and influential poet who focused more on her word choice rather than following the conventional syntax of writing poetry that made her popular even among today’s literary world.

Short lines

Emily writes short and brief lines that make her poetry compact. She conveys her idea in a small number of words. Her style is so compact that she delivers a great theme in a few numbers of lines that are not very lengthy but brief. Such as:

Success is counted sweetest

By those who ne’er succeed

A reader can understand the main idea of the poem by reading these two short lines.

Lack of Titles

Emily Dickinson’s poems do not have titles. The first line of her poems is used as the title for example, the poem Success is counted sweetest is actually the first line of the poem that is used as its title.

Slant rhyme

Though Emily uses perfect rhymes for second and fourth lines, she also sometimes uses slant rhymes, also called approximate rhyme, the rhyme that has similar but not identical sounds). For example in the below lines from Emily Dickinson’s “Not any higher stands the Grave” , Queen and Afternoon show an example of slant rhyme.

“This latest Leisure equal lulls

The Beggar and his Queen

Propitiate this Democrat

A Summer’s Afternoon –”

Unconventional Capitalization and Punctuation

Emily’s poetry has an unconventional use of Capitalization which emphasizes a particular theme and puts stress on it. This unconventional Capitalization and Punctuation sometimes slow down the pace and sometimes it speeds it up. 

The extensive use of dashes in her poetry indicates pauses, to join two thoughts or to push them apart. It also shows her individual style of line break and makes her works unique. For example;

“Not any higher stands the Grave

For Heroes than for Men –

Not any nearer for the Child

Than numb Three Score and Ten –”

Grave , Men , Child and Ten are capitalized in the above lines. The excerpt also shows the use of dashes.

Major Themes

Emily has discussed a variety of themes in her works such as religion , home and family , death , nature and love .

She has talked about flowers and gardens in her poetry. She has associated flowers with certain emotions, for example, she associated gentias and anemones with youth and insight.

She has also discussed morbidity and death in her poetry. She has talked about different methods of death such as crucifixion, drowning, hanging, suffocation, shooting, stabbing etc.

She has also written Gospel poems in which she has addressed Jesus Christ and has reflected his teachings.

She often uses the ballad stanza in her poems, a form which is divided into quatrains where the first and the third lines use tetrameter while the second and the fourth line use trimeter. The second line rhymes with the fourth line in such a way that the rhyme scheme becomes ABCB.

Emily’s use of meter is sometimes regular while oftentimes it is irregular. She has used Hymn Meters which includes tetrameter and trimeter but not iambic pentameter , while dimeter is less commonly used by her.

She has also used Ballad Meter which is a variant of Hymn Meter. It is conversational in nature and is less strict than the Common Meter.

She uses the Common Meter of eight syllables followed by a line of six syllables while writing a hymn, with an 8/6/8/6 pattern however unlike traditional hymns, she has liberated herself from the common meter. She uses enjambment and takes breaks where there are no syntactic pauses or line breaks. For example, in I cannot live with you, she has paused unconventionally.

The Sexton keeps the Key to – 

     Putting up

     Our Life – His Porcelain – 

     Like a Cup –

Works Of Emily Dickinson

• Success is Counted Sweetest
• I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died

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What is emily dickinson writing style?

Emily Dickinson is an American poet who is known for her unconventional writing style. She often used unconventional grammar and punctuation, and her poems were often short and to the point.

Emily Dickinson’s writing style is highly poetic and often employs unconventional grammar and syntax. She frequently uses dashes to create discontinuous or enjambed lines, and her use of slant rhyme is well-known. Dickinson also makes use of compressed language, which adds to the overall effect of her poems.

What is the poetry technique of Emily Dickinson?

Emily Dickinson’s poems often employ short stanzas, mostly quatrains, with short lines. This stanza form allows her to pack a lot of meaning into a small space. The rhymes on the second and fourth lines help to create a musical quality that further enhances the emotional impact of her words.

Emily Dickinson’s poetry is full of references to natural disasters like volcanoes, funerals, and shipwrecks. She uses rhetoric and hyperbole to great effect, making her poems both moving and memorable. Unfortunately, she didn’t receive much appreciation for her work during her lifetime and most of her poems were only published after her death.

What was unique about Emily Dickinson’s writing style

Emily Dickinson’s unique writing style is characterized by her use of dashes, dots, and unconventional capitalization. She also employs vivid imagery and idiosyncratic vocabulary. Rather than using pentameter, she tends to favor trimester, tetrameter, and even dimeter.

Emily Dickinson was a prolific writer who used creative punctuation to add emphasis and effect to her work. She is known for her unconventional use of capitalization and punctuation, which she used to create new meanings and emphasize important words.

What is the overall tone of Emily Dickinson’s poetry?

Emily Dickinson is certainly unique among poets, and she employs a couple of different tones in her poetry. She has death and suffering poems, in which she is quite pessimistic and depressing, very dark and gloomy. But she also has some poems that read like tiny essays with a cognition above and beyond all other poets.

Dickinson was a prolific and innovative writer, and her work challenges many of the conventions of her time. She often wrote about taboo subjects like death and religion, and her unique style set her apart from other writers of her era. Scholars continue to debate her place in the literary canon, but there is no doubt that she was a major voice in American poetry.

What are two characteristics of Emily Dickinson’s style?

Dickinson’s use of dashes and unconventional capitalization was likely due to her desire to create a certain cadence and rhythm in her poems. By breaking up the lines with dashes, she was able to create a more musical quality, which helped to communicate her meaning more effectively. The capitalization of interior words also helped to create a certain emphasis or feeling within the poem.

A four-line stanza is a type of poem that has four lines. The use of personification is a technique that can be used in a four-line stanza to make it more interesting. A varying rhythm can also be used to add interest to a four-line stanza.

Which of the following is best description of Emily Dickinson’s poetry

Dickinson’s poetry is concise and introspective, which makes it some of the best poetry around. Her poems are often about her inner thoughts and feelings, and she is able to communicate a lot in a few words. This makes her poetry both moving and powerful.

What is Emily Dickinson most famous quote?

This beautiful quote by Emily Dickinson is a reminder that hope is always present, even in the toughest of times. It is the light that guides us through the darkness and the force that never allows us to give up. Hope is what makes us human and it is what makes life worth living.

Emily Dickinson is considered one of the most important female poets of the literary era. As a Romantic figure, she was influenced by transcendentalism, dark romanticism and later by Realism. Her poetry focuses on expressing the hidden consciousness of fragmented thoughts. She has been praised for her ability to capture the essence of human experience and for her innovative use of language and form.

What was strange about Emily Dickinson

Emily was always considered a strange girl by the residents of her hometown. She would often wear white clothing and was very reclusive. Emily would sometimes only hold conversations with people through the closed door of her bedroom.

There is something incredibly powerful and beautiful about these words. They speak to the heart of what it means to be human – to care for others, to live in the moment, and to appreciate the life we have been given. We all have the capacity to make a difference in the world, and these words remind us of the importance of choosing to do so.

What are 3 interesting facts about Emily Dickinson?

Emily Dickinson is one of the most famous writers in American history, but there are plenty of things about her that most people don’t know. Here are 12 fascinating facts about the reclusive writer that help shed some light on her enigmatic life.

1. Only 10 Poems Were Published in Her Lifetime

Emily Dickinson was an incredibly prolific writer, but only a small fraction of her poems were ever published during her lifetime. In total, only 10 of her poems were published in various magazines and newspapers.

2. She Dropped Out of Seminary After 10 Months

Dickinson briefly attended Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, but she dropped out after just 10 months. It’s believed that she left because she was homesick and missed her family.

3. She and Her Brother Loved the Same Woman

Dickinson had a close relationship with her brother Austin, but it was complicated by the fact that they both loved the same woman. Austin eventually married the woman, which caused a rift between the siblings.

4. She Also Wrote Love Letters to a Mystery Man

In addition to her brother, Dickinson also had a deep and complex relationship with a mystery man whom she never married. She wrote dozens of love letters

Dickinson’s seclusion allowed her to focus on developing her poetry. Her poems addressed emotional and psychological states such as loneliness, pain, happiness, and ecstasy; death, often personified; religion and morality; as well as love and love lost.

What did Emily Dickinson refuse to do

Emily Dickinson was a poet who lived in the nineteenth century. She was known for her reclusive behavior and her unconventional views on domesticity. Dickinson refused to participate in many traditional domestic chores usually assigned to women in the nineteenth century. She enjoyed gardening, but refused to do household cleaning that she saw as a neverending task. Dickinson’s views on domesticity were likely influenced by her own experiences growing up in a household where her mother performed all of the domestic tasks. Dickinson saw domesticity as a way to confine women and limit their opportunities.

I was brought up in a Calvinist household and attended religious services with my family at the village meetinghouse. Congregationalism was the predominant denomination of early New England. I am now an Amherst College administrator.

Emily Dickinson’s writing style can be described as concise and poignant. She often used simple language to express complex emotions, and her poems often have a dark or mysterious tone. Dickinson also frequently employed unusual rhyme schemes and meters in her poetry, which help to create an ethereal or dream-like quality.

Emily Dickinson’s writing style is often characterized as enigmatic, elliptical, and visionary. She is known for her use of slant rhyme, abrupt syntax, and unruffled meter, as well as for her unconventional punctuation and capitalization. Dickinson’s style reflects her reclusive lifestyle and her preoccupation with death and immortality.

Minnie Walters

Minnie Walters is a passionate writer and lover of poetry. She has a deep knowledge and appreciation for the work of famous poets such as William Wordsworth, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, and many more. She hopes you will also fall in love with poetry!

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Home / Poetry / Emily Dickinson / Emily Dickinson Poetry Characteristics | Writing Style and Themes

Emily Dickinson Poetry Characteristics | Writing Style and Themes

Table of contents

Characteristics of emily dickinson poetry, unconventional themes, varied moods, shortness and conciseness, untitled poems, individualism and transcendentalism as characteristics of emily dickinson poetry, unbiased opinions, mysticism and spiritualism as characteristics of emily dickinson poetry, unique writing style and distinctive technique as characteristics of emily dickinson poetry.

Dickinson, also known as Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was an American poet best known for themes, writing style and bold characteristics in her poetry. She was born on December 10, 1830 and died on May 15, 1886. In her lifetime, she wrote many wonderful poems with divergent themes and unconventional writing style. Almost every poem of this great American poet has been read all over the world and criticized by students of literature.

Certain Characteristics of Emily Dickinson poetry are:

• Unconventional themes
• Individualism and Transcendentalism
• Mysticism and Spiritualism
• Unique Writing Style
• Distinctive Techniques

Some famous poems with these characteristics are:

• Because I could not Stop for Death
• Hope is the Thing with Feathers
• I Heard a Fly Buzz when I Died
• Wild Nights — Wild Nights

Every poet writes as per his desire and affection. He likes to describe things which he loves. Similarly, Emily Dickinson also likes to write poems on such topics which fascinates her. She has an expressive style of writing poetry, in which she covers bundles of themes. Humanity has not been changed since the creation of mankind. Even the Greek literature that was written thousands of years ago appeals to the readers till date; therefore, literature always has universal appeal. She writes poems in which she covers different subject matters. Needless to mention that she does not write poetry for the sake of poetry but to explore social, political and domestic problems in her poems.

Most of the poems that she wrote contain some common themes; some of them are “innersole exploration”, “death”, “despair”, “sex”, “affection”, “self-identity” etc. In “ Because I could not Stop for Death ” and “ I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died “, she portrays themes of immortality and death whereas “ Hope is the thing with Feathers” is poem that contains hope as its major theme. In addition, the poem “Wild Nights — Wild Nights” deals with the theme of sex.

Nonetheless, she never repeats the main idea of his poems. Every time she writes a poem, she writes it with a new thematic concept and discusses everything anew, hence, there is freshness in her poems due to which each poem appeals to the readers.

It is also noteworthy that she depicts unconventional themes as evident from naked analysis of her poems. In “Because I could not stop for Death”, she portrays death as a friend. Instead of sketching a horror picture of death, she very beautifully explains it as a certain reality that everyone has to face one day. Accordingly, use of unconventional themes and wide variety of themes are two major characteristics of Emily Dickinson poetry.

It should be noted that she changes her mood with every new poem she writes. If she focuses on themes of death, despair and pessimism then her tone becomes didactic whereas in the remaining poems her mood remains humorous.

She does not go beyond the topic that she discusses in her poem due to none of her poems is so long. She does not add any extra useless words in her poems. When she talks about social problems, usually a single speaker talks about the issues. He expresses his opinions on the matter and readers understand the whole situation. For instance, in her poem, “Because I could not stop for Death” she uses the first person but that does not mean she talks about herself.

Many poets support the idea of not giving title to their poems. It is the case with her poems. It is also one of the noticeable characteristics of Emily Dickinson poetry that she writes untitled poems and as a rule of thumb the first line of each poem becomes the title of the poem, hence, every titleless poem she has written was published with the first line as its title.

American poetry is rarely romantic. In fact, every American poet talks about individualistic problems. Sylvia Plath is one of the major poets who wrote poems with the themes of self identity. Emily Dickenson poems are also based on these types of unique themes. She also deals with the themes of isolation. Her poetry is thus the poetry of analytical reasoning. Her power of imagination helps her in this regard. She imagines such a situation which hardly anyone imagined in his life due to which she grabs the interest of her readers.

She is among those persons who understands life relationships; Emily Dickinson does not take any idea as a religious belief, hence, transcendentalism and realism are also two important characteristics of her poetry.

There was a time when the primary purpose of poets was to show the relationship between humans and gods. Subsequently, the poets started writing poetry in which they portrayed the influence of society on one’s life. Emily Dickenson’s poetry lacks such traditional themes. She talks about her own problems. She likes to write about her personal problems but that does not mean her poetry is only for herself. There is a kind of universality in her poems as her problems are the problems of almost every person.

It is also worth mentioning that she does not write for a specific caste, group or nation. In fact, she was highly criticized for not being patriotic at all. She does not even write a single poem, in which she shows herself as a patriotic soul. So, it is safe to say that her poetry is totally impartial.

Among other important characteristics, a major attribute of Emily Dickinson poetry is that there is mysticism and spiritualism in it. In her views, poetry has a divine inspiration; therefore, she writes poetry with full poetic perspectives. Most of the poems she writes are the result of her personal thinking and imagination. She also shares the themes of pains and sufferings in almost every poem as she thinks that life is based on these two ingredients. It also shows that in the 19th century, American literature was not influenced by any second thought, hence, it was entirely based on personal issues.

There is no denying the fact that realism is the characteristic due to which Emily Dickinson poetry is remarkable and a hallmark of American literature. In her poetry, she never creates a utopian or perfect world. Life is full of problems and she talks about them realistically. Instead of escaping from the problems of life, she compels her readers to face them. For instance, when she talks about death. She pretends that it is her only friend in this world and certain death has come to take her to another world.

Love life of Emily Dickinson was very distributed. Her poetry reflects one sided love and affection. She writes about the miseries that a person suffers being in a relationship. Like romantic poets she does not exaggerate natural objects as nature no longer gives her pleasure in the way it feels pleasant to the romantic poets. She is not in favor of love as love played no important role in her life. It is apparent from her poetry that she gives a message to her readers that love is the only reason due to which every female has no self respect at all. She is of the view that life of a married woman becomes full of miseries and she loses her place in the society.

In addition, she proves that people love each other just for physical pleasure. Love does not mentally support a person. In fact, her poems prove that love is a basic need for physical satisfaction. It is not wrong to say that love has no special value in the eyes of Emily Diconson. She always talks about reality and speaks the truth. Thus, themes of love and affection are very rare in her poetry.

Poets that write realistic poems frequently use the technique of symbolism . In fact, every writer preaches a specific message through symbols that he uses in his poetry. Emily Dickinson like other American poets, uses a lot of symbolic images in her poems to convey a message to her audience/readers. Mostly, the symbols she uses gives a pessimistic atmosphere. Defining life is hard but she knows how to write a message in hidden words in an artistic manner. Consequently, symbolism is one of the major characteristics of Emily Dickinson poetry.

As far as her writing style is concerned, she uses more dashes than any other punctuation mark in her poetry. Perhaps, she is the only American writer who uses more dashes than commas or any other punctuation mark; however, she writes concise sentences. She knows the art of choosing an exact word for a specific idea. Grammatically, poets are always not dependent on grammar nor do they follow it completely. Similarly, Emily Dickenson does not keep an eye on the grammatical structure of her poems. Usually, she does so for creating lyrics and rhymes in poems.

So far as the rhythm in Emily Dickinson poetry is concerned, she has experimented with different techniques due to which unique writing style and distinctive style of writing are two best characteristics of her poetry. She uses different punctuation marks for different purposes. For instance, she uses (‘) in order to create stress in a line. Usually, she writes poems with stanzas containing four lines. Nevertheless, she writes poems with such a passion that it increases interest of her readers.

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Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson was born on December 10, 1830, in Amherst, Massachusetts. She attended Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in South Hadley, but only for one year. Her father, Edward Dickinson, was actively involved in state and national politics, serving in Congress for one term. Her brother, Austin, who attended law school and became an attorney, lived next door with his wife, Susan Gilbert. Dickinson’s younger sister, Lavinia, also lived at home, and she and Austin were intellectual companions for Dickinson during her lifetime.

Dickinson’s poetry was heavily influenced by the Metaphysical poets of seventeenth-century England, as well as her reading of the Book of Revelation and her upbringing in a Puritan New England town, which encouraged a Calvinist, orthodox, and conservative approach to Christianity. She admired the poetry of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning , as well as John Keats . Though she was dissuaded from reading the verse of her contemporary Walt Whitman by rumors of its disgracefulness, the two poets are now connected by the distinguished place they hold as the founders of a uniquely American poetic voice. While Dickinson was extremely prolific and regularly enclosed poems in letters to friends, she was not publicly recognized during her lifetime. The first volume of her work was published posthumously in 1890 and the last in 1955. She died in Amherst in 1886.

Upon her death, Dickinson’s family discovered forty handbound volumes of nearly 1,800 poems, or “fascicles,” as they are sometimes called. Dickinson assembled these booklets by folding and sewing five or six sheets of stationery paper and copying what seem to be final versions of poems. The handwritten poems show a variety of dash-like marks of various sizes and directions (some are even vertical). The poems were initially unbound and published according to the aesthetics of her many early editors, who removed her annotations. The current standard version of her poems replaces her dashes with an en-dash, which is a closer typographical approximation to her intention. The original order of the poems was not restored until 1981, when Ralph W. Franklin used the physical evidence of the paper itself to restore her intended order, relying on smudge marks, needle punctures, and other clues to reassemble the packets. Since then, many critics have argued that there is a thematic unity in these small collections, rather than their order being simply chronological or convenient. The Manuscript Books of Emily Dickinson (Belknap Press, 1981) is the only volume that keeps the order intact.

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Emily dickinson: writing it 'slant'.

American poet Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) is today best known for her use of slant-rhyme, conceits, and unconventional punctuation, as well as her near-legendary reclusive habits. She was part of a prominent Amherst, Massachusetts family. As neither Emily nor her sister Lavinia ever married, they remained at home and looked after their parents. Dickinson became very reclusive with age, sometimes speaking to guests from behind a door, but she also maintained close, intellectual friendships through her correspondence with literary men Samuel Bowles and Thomas Wentworth Higginson, as well as her best friend, neighbour, and sister-in-law Susan Gilbert Dickinson.

Dickinson has perhaps unfairly earned a reputation for being a rather morbid poet, focused intently on death. Death was certainly a preoccupation of Dickinson's, especially as her New England culture was permeated with evangelical Christian questions of salvation, redemption, and the afterlife. However, Dickinson also wrote powerfully about nature and questions of knowledge, faith, and love.

When Dickinson did write about death, she wrote it 'slant', coming to the subject with her own distinctive twist. In the 1863 poem 'I heard a Fly buzz – when I died' (in Poems, Third Series ; Chapter 4:46) Dickinson enumerates the elements of a conventional and pious deathbed scene: 'I willed my Keepsakes – Signed away | What portion of me be | Assignable…'. The speaker has completed her earthly business while the watchers wait for 'that last Onset – when the King | Be witnessed – in the Room –'. But, as the first line of the poem hints, the watchers and the dying speaker do not witness the coming of Christ the Bridegroom but that of a mundane housefly.

The fly diminishes and ironises this commonplace and sentiment-laden moment of death. It is not what the watchers, the speaker, or the reader expect. While the fly diminishes the lead up to the speaker's death, its appearance also creates a break, coming between 'the light' and the speaker at the very moment of transition: 'And then the Windows failed – and then | I could not see to see'. In the end, the speaker sees the fly and the abyss of oblivion, not the promised salvation or Christ the King. Dickinson uses her trademark dash and carefully placed line breaks to indicate the moment of death, the sudden shift from sight to blindness, light to nothingness.

Dickinson has taken the deathbed scene, elsewhere played for melodramatic value such as Little Eva's death in Harriet Beecher Stowe's immensely popular Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), and used it to consider the reality of death and possibility of annihilation. Emily Dickinson's poetry is characterised by such moments of sudden shifts, arresting imagery, and carefully considered 'dashing'.

Emily Dickinson did not become known as a poet until after her own death. She had asked Lavinia to burn her papers after her death, but when Lavinia discovered the massive number of poems in a drawer, she passed them instead to Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Mabel Loomis Todd (in fact, the mistress of Dickinson's brother) who published three volumes of Dickinson's poetry in the 1890s.

Dickinson's poems are small things, most very short, but they hold a world of beauty within them, if you are willing to read them 'slant' and tease out her meaning.

If reusing this resource please attribute as follows: Emily Dickinson: Writing it 'Slant' at http://writersinspire.org/content/emily-dickinson-writing-it-slant by Erin Nyborg, licensed as Creative Commons BY-NC-SA (2.0 UK).

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Reading Emily Dickinson's letters : critical essays

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Lesson Ideas: Writing Assignments

Writing assignments.

• Emily Dickinson was VERY serious about being a poet. Her poem “It was given to me by the Gods” (Fr455) can make a powerful connection with students about the power of their own gifts and talents. Have students use this poem to discuss Dickinson’s sense of being a poet and as a prompt to write about their own gifts.
• Emily Dickinson described herself in a letter: “[I] am small, like the Wren, and my Hair is bold, like the Chestnut Bur – and my eyes, like the Sherry in the Glass, that the Guest leaves” (L269). So few words give her recipient an ample verbal portrait, but they also reveal other things about her. Discuss this description with your students, then challenge them to write a similarly concise but creative description of themselves.
• Have students choose a favorite Dickinson poem and use a line from it as a prompt for students to write their own poems and make their own fascicles.
• Emily Dickinson wrote “Tell all the Truth / But tell it slant” (Fr1264). Talk with your students about what this means. Have them write a personal memory but write it “slant.” (This  writing prompt  is available as a PDF with the complete text of the poem.) 
• Have the students write a letter to a friend introducing them to Emily Dickinson.

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Leaving Cert English Emily Dickinson Sample Answer: Enduring Appeal and Universal Relevance

Far from being old fashioned and irrelevant emily dickinson’s unique poetic language continues to have both an enduring appeal and universal relevance. discuss..

The poetry of Emily Dickinson is nigh irresistible. She revels in the presentation of the unusual and unexpected. It is indeed her innovative poetic language that propels her poetry form the past and into today. Dickinson’s unconventional work has an eternal appeal. Dickinson casts off the restrictions of traditional punctuation. She makes use of concrete imagery and language to convey abstract ideas, ranging from joyous hope to devastating despair. There is no doubt that Dickinson is a poet of extremes. The Belle Of Amherst has an undeniable transcendental power.